


4:24 AM

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Alpha Protocol
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Family, Gen, M/M, aptor characters, daily life, michael thorton/sean darcy - Freeform, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:04:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9960206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: A series of ficlets about the family of theAlpha Protocolspies, and what they are up to while their loved ones are out saving the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Alpha Protocol_ declares Agent Thorton dead. Eventually, his family has to find out.

    Gerome opened the door on to two tall white men in tailored black suits wearing small black earpieces and aviator glasses. Both of them stood perfectly still with posture as straight as a good walking stick. 

    Cold spring wind blew in around them.

    His first response was to pull his hands very carefully from his side. He forced his chain of thought to end right there, made his first thought his only one. He knew his second thought would send his heart rate up even further, would wrap around his heart like a particularly broad rubber band and squeeze.

    After all, it had been months since he’d heard from Mike.

    One man nodded curtly. “Are you Gerome Thorton?” he asked, in a low, precise way that sent Gerome’s hands shaking.

    “Yeah,” he said, “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

    The second one stopped looking over Gerome’s shoulder, into the living room. “You’re the uncle of Michael Thorton?”

    “Yes,” he said, starting to feel a little dizzy. Nadine and Gabe had never poked deeper into Michael’s career than they had to, had never pressed the issue with him, had always accepted the infrequent visits and even more infrequent calls and doublethought away that one time they got called about a security clearance. Maybe that’s why Michael had started calling Gerome instead, always at ungodly hours in the morning, always distantly rambling about random, unconnected thoughts. The feasibility of using hoverbikes in future racing circuits. The history of sidewalks and pedestrians. Best ways to cut grass in the summer.

    Gerome smiled reflexively. Getting teenage Mike to mow the lawn during the summers had caused nightmare fights in the family. Back then, Nadine had been the one calling late at night. Gabe had never bothered with the courtesy, would come barging in on weekends with a six pack, would park himself in the center of the couch, and wouldn't leave until he'd said his piece.

    “Sir?” the first guy said, and it hurt to keep the smile in place, but he did. The suspicion was settling in his stomach, condensing.

    “What did you say?” Gerome asked.

    “I said…” the second one repeated, “there’s been an accident.”

    He kept talking. Gerome didn’t hear him. He didn’t really need to. He knew. The dense ball dragging his stomach down knew, the tension in his shoulders knew.

    The first time Michael had called him, capital C, it’d been only a few years after his graduation.

     _“There might be a day,”_ he’d said, so detached that at his initial _hello_ that Gerome hadn't recognized who it was, _“When you and Mom and Dad stop hearing from me.”_

    Gerome had made him go to bed, made him promise to get some sleep. Told him they would talk about it in the morning. But there’d been a 'work trip', and by the time Michael got back Gabe was sick and there were other things to talk about. There had always been other things to talk about. Roger Lee Hayden, and crosswalk signals, and the one time Mike actually volunteered to cut the grass. When he went out he found a nest of bunnies burrowed straight in the center of the front lawn. He dragged some cinder blocks from out of the back shed and put up a protective boundary and thought he’d be home free for a few weeks, except Gerome had a silent manual mower with rusty blades, and Gabe found out, stuck a Christmas bow on it and gave it to Mike. Gerome had never seen a kid look so distraught.

     _There might be a day when you and Mom and Dad stop hearing from me._

    Yeah, there’d been too much to talk about over the years to bring that back up. But Gerome wasn’t Nadine, and he wasn’t Gabe, and he may not have found the right place for talking but he’d found good ones for listening. So while he didn’t _know_ what Michael did, he knew.

    And while he didn’t _know_ what the agent on his door was going on about, he knew.

    “I’m sorry,” the second agent finished. “We’ll contact you soon with more details.”

    “Yeah,” Gerome said, and closed the door on them. He shuffled slowly across the room, sunk down on one side of the couch.

    Gabe gone. Nadine gone. And Michael…

    He’d tried to sharpen the mower blades with a whetstone he’d gotten from god only knew where, had done pretty well until his hand had slipped. Gerome had met them at the hospital, Nadine unnaturally calm except for the way her pale hands were going even whiter around the knuckles as she gripped the edge of her chair. Gabe stroking Mike’s loosely curled hair in sharp, short patterns, in a panic because he’d heard one of the nurses say _one more centimeter to the right and._ And Michael in the middle of it all, no fifteen-year old’s fascination with disaster, no child’s fear of the amount of blood coating his arm. Only detachment, as he studied the doctor injecting lidocaine into the gashes.

     _“You’re a brave one, aren’t you?”_ the doctor had said, and that had done it. Mike had started bawling into Gabe’s shoulder, and Gerome had been surprised the doctor hadn’t dropped dead from the glares alone. In those stares Gerome could also read the talking to Mike was going to catch come a few weeks. A stay of execution and a free pass on chores from Nadine, a sternly worded _never do anything that stupid again_ from Gabe. Mike had returned the mower that September, and it had been Gerome’s turn to say something, and he’d wanted to but he hadn’t.

     _“There might be a day when you and Mom and Dad stop hearing from me,”_ Mike said, and then there was silence on the line for a moment while Gerome gathered up his thoughts.

     _“I ever tell you,”_ he finally said, _“I’m proud of you?”_

     _“I-”_   Michael said, hesitated.

    Then the detachment broke off, the shift coming through even in his whisper. The sound of uneven, shallow breaths coming through in the quiet.

     _“Thanks.”_

     _“We’re_ all _proud of you. Get some sleep and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”_

    Gerome leaned back on the couch. He'd be up late tonight, but his phone wouldn't ring, and he knew that too.  


    Gabe, and Nadine, and now Michael.

    “I’m proud of you, Mike,” he said out loud.

    And then he couldn’t keep his head up anymore, so he held it in his hands instead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean's dad finally gets his hands on the presidency.

The map turned blue, and then it turned red. Sean watched the landscape fluctuate on the television. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the Times had called it twenty minutes ago.

The voices of the newscasters grew slightly more hysterical. He shut the screen off.

“So,” I said.

“Yep,” he said.

“We crashing the inauguration, or…?”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “In fact, I got a couple of op-eds to write. Gimme.”

He tugged at my laptop. I let him have it.

“Cheer up, Mikey,” he said, despite the fact that I wasn’t the one whose dad just got elected president. “Coulda been much worse. He nearly lost the primaries to Trump.”

“He did?”

“How do you _not_ pay attention to politics?”

“I’m a spy, Sean, not a politician.”

“That’s my point.”

He pushed the laptop away an inch, and gave me one of the looks that he thought said, _I am annoyed with you,_ that _I_ thought said, _I love you,_ and that in all honesty was probably somewhere in the middle. I think it was the little smile he was always trying and failing to suppress that gave him away _. I am annoyed with the fact that I am very much in love with you._

“I love you, Sean,” I told him, watching him try even harder to stifle the smile. “even if your dad is a horrible conservative nightmare of a president-elect, who – side note – got me exiled.”

“In exchange,” he offered, “I forgive ya for forgetting to vote.”

“Again – exiled. Not a legal citizen anymore.”

“Not even willing to _consider_ committing fraud for my sake?”

“Gonna have to give that a hard pass.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, as if there was going to be any changing of my mind.

Then he grinned and winked at me, and turned his attention back to the laptop, and I decided that yes, some things might well be worth the damage the American democracy would sustain.


End file.
